What a bad week for the war party. Darn you, Iran! The country that the armchair
warriors most love to hate refuses to play the villain’s role assigned by the
neoconservatives, “humanitarian” interventionists, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and
the establishment media.

First Iran quickly released 10 U.S. sailors whose armed boats had violated Iran’s
territorial waters near the militarily sensitive Farsi Island in the Persian
Gulf. (Never mind why the boats were there; the official explanation keeps changing,
but don’t dare suggest the reason was anything but innocent.)

Next Iran was found in full compliance with the nuclear agreement, killing its
nonexistent nuclear-weapons program.

Then it released five Americans held in Iran in exchange for seven Iranians
held in American prisons. (None of the 12 should have been jailed.)

What’s a war party to do when the Official Enemy won’t act like it? Where are
militarists who seek the presidency to turn if they can’t count on their tacit
allies, Iran’s hardliners, to sabotage the constructive actions of the reasonable
Iranian president and foreign minister?

The US government and its closest ally, Israel, have threatened to attack
Iran for decades. Meanwhile they have conducted covert, proxy, and cyber war
against the Islamic Republic. But Iran wouldn’t take the bait. George W. Bush
hoped to bomb Iran into regime-change before he left office, but the US intelligence
apparatus documented that
Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, leaving Bush’s plans in tatters.

The warmongers just can’t catch a break, but Iran’s un-enemy-like conduct doesn’t
deter them. As true-believers, they are unfazed by facts.

Hillary Clinton is to be included in this group. In one of her presidential
debates she listed Iran among the enemies she’s most proud to have made –
odd coming from a former secretary of state who says she helped prepare for
the nuclear talks. In the midst of the good news last weekend, she called for
new sanctions because Iran had tested a long-range allegedly nuclear-capable
missile in supposed violation of a UN resolution. (The Obama administration
obliged,
although Iran protests
that the missile is not nuclear-capable.)

It unclear why the arms-merchant United States and its Mideast
allies are allowed to have long-range missiles, but Iran is not. It’s also
unclear why that UN resolution is so special when the US government has
no problem with Israel’s 50-year-old defiance of UN resolutions regarding the
oppressed Palestinians. Israel, of course, is the Middle East’s nuclear monopolist,
refuses (unlike Iran) to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and thus is not
subject to inspections, as Iran long has been. One also wonders what Iran could
do with a long-range missile armed with a conventional warhead except to perhaps
deter the long-threatened US attack. Iran has a small military budget and no
offensive capability.

The Republican presidential contenders saw aggression in everything the Iranians
did last week and appeasement in everything President Obama did. We should be
accustomed to such nonsense by now. You’d have thought Iran crossed into American
waters or repeatedly threatened the United States. If under similar circumstances
an American president did what the Republicans apparently think Iran should
have done – presumably, ignore the intruding boats – they’d be screaming
for impeachment. If, as they say, Turkey was justified in shooting down Russian
military jets that briefly violated its airspace (it wasn’t), why are they upset
when Iran peacefully apprehends armed US naval craft in their waters?

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio all struck tough-guy poses,
demonstrating once more why they and Clinton must be kept far from US military
power. Against Iran, the Republicans expressed
their support for the barbaric theocratic Saudi Arabia, although it subsidizes
bin Ladenites and commits genocide with US support in Yemen.

Contrary to the hawks, Iran is the aggrieved
party in the relationship with the United States. It tried to cooperate
with America many times, including after 9/11, but was rebuffed consistently.

To be sure, Iran’s regime is an authoritarian theocracy, but Saudi Arabia is
worse. Tehran, not Riyadh, has churches and synagogues, and Iranian women have
far more freedom than Saudi women. Iran’s regime, an unfortunate reaction to
CIA subversion of Iranian secular democracy in 1953, is no
threat to Americans.

It’s past time for détente. If Israeli and Saudi Arabia don’t like
it, too bad.

“Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to international sanctions,” said Adam J. Szubin, acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. “We have consistently made clear that the United States will vigorously press sanctions against Iranian activities outside of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – including those related to Iran’s support for terrorism, regional destabilization, human rights abuses, and ballistic missile program.”

Adam Szubin is the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence; he replaced Stuart Levy who replaced David Cohen (now Deputy Director of the CIA for which Mossad must be breaking out the champaign). Apparently, a critical requirement for the position is to be a Zionist agent of Israel.

U.S. intelligence agencies have stated that Iran stopped their nuclear weapons program in 2003 and has not revived it, Mossad concurs with this assessment. So why does the U.S. have ANY sanctions on Iran? Just look at the fifth column in high levels of U.S. government for the answer.

The régime of the USA is much more punitive than any democratic government, has far more incarcerations, the death penalty which would exclude it from the EU if it were eligible, yet it pretends to be a model for us all.

Eileen Kuch

You’re absolutely right on that, Rosemerry .. no other nation on Earth has the incarceration rate as does the USSA .. and at least 50% of those behind bars don’t even belong there, since they don’t pose a danger to society.
And, whatever the USSA does, DO NOT imprison political dissidents. The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedoms of speech, religion, press and peaceful assembly; and incarcerating those who criticize the gov’t and peacefully express that dissent through marches and demonstrations is a GROSS violation of this Amendment. The USSA has NO justification for condemning any other nation for imprisoning dissidents, so long as it does so.
Actions speak much louder than words.

RevNowWhileWeCan

“Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio all struck tough-guy poses, demonstrating once more why they and Clinton must be kept far from US military power.”